I'm Cat Meat

A Mulsim cleric in Australia has decided that I am abandoned cat meat and deserve to be raped because I don't cover myself in a couch throw and put on a mask when I go outside.

"If you take uncovered meat and put it on the street, on the pavement, in a garden, in a park, or in the backyard, without a cover and the cats eat it, then whose fault will it be, the cats, or the uncovered meat's? The uncovered meat is the disaster. If the meat was covered the cats wouldn't roam around it. If the meat is inside the fridge, they won't get it."

"If the woman is in her boudoir, in her house and if she's wearing the veil and if she shows modesty, disasters don't happen."

So I guess that makes his wife(wives?) and daughters covered up cat meat. I always thought the dating scene was somewhat of a meat market, but never really took it literally. In the Muslim world, then women are meat and men have no choice as prowling cats but to pounce on and devour the meat. Great world philosophy they have there. This does explain a lot on why we will never ever ever be able to negotiate with these people. They come from another planet, another time and a completely foreign mindset than we have.

"Satan sees women as half his soldiers. You're my messenger in necessity, Satan tells women you‘re my weapon to bring down any stubborn man. There are men that I fail with. But you're the best of my weapons."

"Â…The woman was behind Satan playing a role when she disobeyed God and went out all dolled up and unveiled and made of herself palatable food that rakes and perverts would race for. She was the reason behind this sin taking place."

Aha. Women are the cause of all evil in the world. We are Satan's tool to undermine the will of MEN. And we deserve everything we get.

What I want to know is where are the feminist and the feminazis protesting these types of statements. If a rapist from Arkansas were to state that the bitch had it coming because she dressed provocatively and had the temerity to go out alone, do you think that they would just let that go with... "Oh well, you know they do come from a different culture down there in Arkansas. We have to understand and accept their cultural diversity." Yeah... right.

It's Apple Time

Now that the weather is turning as crisp as a bowl of fresh apples, my thoughts turn to the Holidays. I break out the worn recipe box with its collection of stained and tattered 4 by 6 cards. Someday, I promise myself, I will re-do these cards before they become completely illegible. I have started to put my favorites into a computer cookbook program that I have. The program even gives the calorie count, fat content and other nutritional information. Sometimes that isn't such a good thing. Yikes!!! My favorite pasta shrimp in cream sauce dish has 1500 calories a serving, and I can't just stop at one serving. Put that on a list of things I didn't want to know.

This is one of my favorite apple pies. I don’t remember where I got the recipe but I do know I’ve had it for at least 10 years. Single crust Cranberry Apple Pie. Colorful and tasty. Enjoy.


Cranberry Apple Pie

Recipe By :
Serving Size : 8 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Baking Desserts
Fruit

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
CRUST
1 1/4 cup flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup shortening
1/4 cup butter -- cubed
3 tablespoons ice water

FILLING
1 1/2 pounds granny Smith apple
2 cups fresh cranberries
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/4 cup flour
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon

3 tablespoons melted butter
1 large egg

Make crust as usual pie crust. Wrap in plastic and chill. Roll out and shape into a pie pan. Chill again. Bake at 400 filled with pie weights 15 minutes. Remove weights and bake 10 minutes more. Cool completely

Peel and chop apples into 1 1/2 inch chunks. Mix apples, cranberries, 1 cup of the sugar and 2 tbsp flour and cinnamon. Place into prepared pie shell. Bake at 325 for 30 minutes. Whisk melted butter, 1/4 cup sugar, beaten egg, and 2 tbsp flour. Pour over filling. Bake 1 hour longer. Cool completely before serving


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 354 Calories; 17g Fat (42.6% calories from fat); 2g Protein; 50g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 51mg Cholesterol; 245mg Sodium. Exchanges: 1/2 Grain(Starch); 0 Lean Meat; 1 Fruit; 3 1/2 Fat; 2 Other Carbohydrates

Addicted to Gaming

I found this article via Instapundit, one of the blogs I routinely read. It's from a woman who is having issues with her husband's excessive gaming. Computer games can be very addicting. However, I have some thoughts about her post that go beyond gaming. I think there are other factors in play in her troubled marriage, but I won't go into those now. The comments are very interesting from gamers and non gamers.

I am a computer game addict. I admit it. Isn't that the first step in breaking an addiction? Well, actually I don't plan to completely break the addiction. Control is more the goal. Unfortunately, some people can't control their time and become so absorbed in the "games" to the extent that the virtual world is more real that the literal world. Their personal interactions with real live people suffer. Their job performance and health deteriorates. It is a serious issue. As I mentioned in a previous post, I am spending much of my time studying for a career related test. In consequence I have had to severely limit my gaming time. We all need to prioritize our time. For me at this point in time it is: Work, Study, Husband, Cooking and Household Maitenance, and Leisure Activities which include gaming, this blog, computer surfing and playing my guitar. Poor guitar has really been neglected. The importance is keeping things in THIS order as much as I want to bump up the gaming to a higher position on the list..... I must not.

World of Warcraft is my latest poison. A MMORPG A very seductive virtual world. In the screenshot above each of the characters is a real person, who is on line at the current time and playing the game. They can all interact with each other in real time. Some people even meet with their virtual gaming friends, get married,form social relationships and have pizza together. In other cases, people become so involved that they lose their friends, family and jobs. This is a true addiction.

As a woman, I am unusual in the gaming world. Very few women like to play role playing and strategy games. Not many women like to program computers and enjoy the logic of the process. I find myself outnumbered not only by gender but also by age. I'm pretty long in the tooth as a gamer as well.

How did this happen that I enjoy computer games? Why do I find it fun to play computer games? My family was always on the cutting edge of technology. When the first home computers became available in the form of the Commodore 64 over 30 years ago. It was a revelation. We could do word processing, no more white out or backspacing over erasing strips. No more carbon paper, just print out several copies. We could play GAMES and program the computer ourselves. The power and the challenge was seductive. When the next advancement came out in computers we had to have more. My father even built his own computers and we helped. Even today, I am always wanting the next more powerful processor, video card, monitor, software....GAME.

Zork, the original text based adventure game, was the first in a long series of games that challenged my mind and absorbed my time. There were no GUIs (graphic user interfaces) at that time. No pretty pictures, no animated characters. Just text on a screen, your brain, a pencil and paper and the satisfaction of the AHA!! moment when you solved the puzzle. I was hooked. The Legend of Zelda, 1986, and Nintendo further enticed me. The graphics were phenomenal, for the time at least, and you could play with other people. My daughter, then 8 yrs old, and I would have a great time with Link and then with the Mario Brothers. Her friends would come over and have Nintendo parties. Fun.

Yet, I was always more drawn to strategy and fantasy games. When Myst came out with its beautiful graphics and complicated puzzles, again I was absorbed into that world and would spend hours working my way through the game, but it was a solitary gaming experience.

The world of online gaming has been a wonderful revelation and a seductive addition to my gaming addiction. Not only are the games challenging, fun and graphically beautiful, you have a social aspect as well. Playing with and against other players, it's easy to become too wrapped up in the experience.

Do I neglect my husband and other duties...... No, I don't..... but it is hard to push myself away from the keyboard sometimes.

Algebra: Who Knew

Way back when in high school we all had to have algebra to graduate. It this still the same? I don’t know. I struggled through the course never really accepting the principles of algebra. To me it seemed like arbitrary rules made up out of thin air.

3 × (d + 4) - 11 = 321 - 23

Just looking at this gives me a headache.

“To find a solution for an equation, we can use the basic rules of simplifying equations. These are as follows:

1) You may evaluate any parentheses, exponents, multiplications, divisions, additions, and subtractions in the usual order of operations. When evaluating expressions, be careful to use the associative and distributive properties properly.

Huuuuh????

2) You may combine like terms. This means adding or subtracting variables of the same kind. The expression 2x + 4x simplifies to 6x. The expression 13 - 7 + 3 simplifies to 9.

3) You may add any value to both sides of the equation.

4) You may subtract any value from both sides of the equation. This is best done by adding a negative value to each side of the equation.

5) You may multiply both sides of the equation by any number except 0.

6) You may divide both sides of the equation by any number except 0.

Hint: Since subtracting any number is the same as adding its negative, it can be helpful to replace subtractions with additions of a negative number”

AAAAKKK Gobbledegook!!! Voodoo numbers that have no basis in reality. Ok…if you insist I will force myself through the course and take it on faith that this stuff really works and has some meaning. I took these courses way before the invention of the handy little calculators that can solve these problems practically by themselves . I vaguely remember using a slide rule. I believe these are now considered collectable antiques.

The math teachers….. strange people to begin with, who would actually WANT to study math…. would assure us that we would need Algebra someday. Well, as it turns out, they were right.

I’ve been a financial advisor for over 17 years now and have completed the CFP courses. (Certified Financial Planner) I’m now in the process of taking a review course to be able to better sit for the final exam in November. This is a very difficult exam with a pass/fail rate of about 50% passing and I am assured, by the course providers, that they have an 80% pass rate. I sure hope so!!.

Up until now to calculate things like the Present Value of a future income stream, the Net Present Value of an investment and associated cash flows, or the amount needed to save on an annual or monthly basis for a future event such as college adjusted for inflation and taxes, I have use one of several computer programs and my handy HP 12C calculator, never really knowing, or caring, that they were doing Algebra for me. We really have become lazy people, relying on machines and computers to do the heavy lifting,

Now, I actually have to understand the underlying principles of solving the program and that means I have to remember basic Algebra.

I have a headache.